


death of the phone call

by roseandsangria



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 15:47:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandsangria/pseuds/roseandsangria
Summary: When a match is struck, and a fire blazes in the city, calls are made. These calls are rarely made to those with the power to stop the inferno.
Kudos: 5





	death of the phone call

When a match is struck, and a fire blazes in the city, calls are made. These calls are rarely made to those with the power to stop the inferno.

When the Baudelaire mansion catches fire, it is a volunteer who makes the first call, watching from the street as the mansion shudders. He tells his sister, who he has not spoken to in months, that he is sorry. He is so sorry, but they are almost certainly dead inside the mansion if they haven’t contacted anyone yet. He suggests that it is the work of someone they called a friend. She asks him about their wayward younger brother—has he been told? The volunteer admits he has no idea where their brother is. 

The pregnant volunteer receiving the call launches the burner phone she holds at the wall, where it shatters. Her belly is only beginning to curve. She allows herself three minutes to sob, loud and unrestrained, before she goes to find a payphone to tell a librarian the news. They have to get through this, she tells him stiffly, regardless of who set the fire. It doesn’t make her feel better, to rely on the routine platitudes that they were taught in their youth, but then again, it never did.

The librarian takes the news better than expected. He is quiet when he is told who their suspect is, and he doubts her words. There are more people in this world with a motive to strike that match than just this suspect. He remembers his own housefire, decades ago. Some of those individuals with motives may even be their own colleagues. He asks the woman where are the children? Have they been found? She isn’t sure, but this is a place to start. This can be a way to recover.

The mansion is crumbling by now. The beautiful bay windows have shattered, and the library burns. Hundreds of books and artifacts will never be recovered.

The pregnant volunteer makes another call from the same payphone to a herpetologist and his assistant. Grief is expressed in Italian, flowery but completely and utterly devastated. The herpetologist asks the woman where the children are. She still does not know. When they hang up, the assistant leaves to rendezvous with his own sister. Perhaps they can check the tunnels later when it is safe. Perhaps they can help.

The phone rings in a silent home on a clifftop. The dowager locks her eyes on it every time it rings, hands folded tightly in her lap. She knows where her dear husband’s telephone gloves are, but they are packed deep under the bed. She could be there in a matter of steps, but she has never been further from him or the things they had shared. The librarian on the other side knows that she will not answer, and he heaves a sigh, thinks of two brothers who are both dead now. The phone stops ringing, after ten minutes, and the dowager exhales gratefully.

Another mansion in the city receives the call from the pregnant volunteer. A triplet calls for his mother, as directed by the volunteer, and when she makes it to the receiver, she shoos him out. As the news is relayed, she feels herself grow dizzy. She is petrified, because if the Baudelaires were destroyed like this, it is not farfetched that her family may be in danger too. As the volunteer tries to placate her, she hangs up to go inform her husband. They must take more precautions. Their children deserve safety.

When you are glitteringly beautiful and undeniably well-connected, you receive many phone calls. If one happens to be about a mansion with outdated architecture burning down, what of it? Who cares about the washed-up actress it belonged to? The sixth most important financial advisor in the city takes a long sip of her pomegranate Sazerac and decides to phone a journalist. Her hands are trembling.

The volunteer is standing in the street now, shoulders shaking with the effort of remaining impassive. An unwelcome colleague appears, and the façade shatters: he shouts at her. She is unrelenting, promising that their readers will want this news: the owner of this mansion was a famous actress before she switched professions, after all. As the firetrucks make their most valiant effort, the volunteer walks away. He can do nothing.

A duchess who once lived in the city receives a phone call from the pregnant volunteer. She knows it is bad news before the person on the other line opens their mouth. She asks, oh so gently, which friend has died. The volunteer exhales shakily. She tells the duchess, who is rattled. Not them, she thinks. Never them. They left to prevent this. She bites back these thoughts and asks the volunteer if they have tried to get into contact with their younger brother? Where is he?

A wealthy man receives the news from a dear friend. He is crying over the line before he can stop himself: the owner of the home was also a beloved friend, if estranged. The volunteer, who had called him in the first place, offers his condolences gently. He bites his tongue on any of the details, because the wealthy man does not need to be informed of them. The only thing he does trust himself to ask after is the second elevator on the top floor: is it still broken?

There are hotel managers screaming at each other in a secluded room. Each blames the other for this event. How could you think I would do this, one asks the other. Isn’t this more typical of your side? Hands are balled into fists. A librarian emerges from the doorway, looking visibly exhausted, and the argument begins anew. They will not come to an agreement, but was it ever possible in their line of work? 

A telegram is sent to a submarine far away from the city by the pregnant volunteer once she returns home. A young mycologist translates this and goes to inform her stepfather who takes the news rather well, despite the recent departure of their duplicitous crewman. He tells her gently that their side will have to weather this storm, but that they cannot hesitate in times of danger. She asks him who could have done this. He also does not hesitate in his reply to her.

Far away from the city, a weary and lonely man resides in a small town. He is disguised as a lame man, and his slow, meandering walk is not entirely an act. The town’s residents give him a wide berth: this man seems more than he looks. He is not one of ours, they seem to think, and they are right. The bins of his home are filled with teabags and dozens of crumpled, typewritten pages. It will be almost impossible for him to receive the news of the fire because he has made it almost impossible to be found. It will happen, though, and it will destroy him.

In the city, the ashes of the mansion are steaming. The firefighters are dismayed. A fire this terrible hasn’t happened in almost fifteen years, when a series of arsons ravaged the theater district. They hope this fire is not heralding a resurgence. Perhaps it was only an accident. They will return home to their families smelling of smoke but grateful it wasn’t their home.

A banker, friend of the Baudelaire family, has been informed of the children’s survival with a short call from an unknown person. The caller’s words are clipped, suggesting that the banker would be best benefitted by checking the local beach first, before he hangs up abruptly. The banker coughs. He had so hoped to have a good day at work. Now he must find these orphaned children and have the responsibility of telling them the news.

In a decrepit home that was once beautiful, a poor count receives the news from a financial advisor. Her voice shakes, and he nearly grinds his teeth into dust from the effort of continuing the conversation. When they hang up, unable to decide how to express this anger and grief, the count is suddenly a whirlwind. Glasses shatter, wine runs over onto the carpet, and terrible roars emerge from the house. It’s not _fair_ , the house itself seems to scream. The neighbor has learned to keep her distance by now. He will eventually tire himself out and only sobs will remain.

Finally, three children have been found on the lonely, misty beach by a banker. The oldest is still only a child, and the youngest is only a baby. All those calls have meant nothing when these children will reap what their parents and their parents’ colleagues sowed. All the money in the world will not make their grief any easier to swallow. 

This has not happened yet. These children have no idea. They will learn and it will not destroy them, although it should.

If only something could have stopped this.

**Author's Note:**

> well, here's something! title comes from "death of the phone call" by whatever, dad.


End file.
